I don't know what's more disturbing; the notion that you would prefer Viciedo getting 20-40% of the LF at bats or the fact that you found the idea of Wise starting in LF so compelling that within your thread title you included "(LEFT FIELD is very interesting)."

Young guys like Tank and Flowers, they don't have a big enough sample size. If every damned player was judged solely on his rookie year, you would be missing out on a lot of really good players.

Flowers, yes. But Viciedo has given us a pretty large sample size, only 289 AB shy of that mythical 1000 where you are supposed to know what you have with a hitter.

But Wise getting more playing time than he will as our primary bench OF, heck no.

Viciedo full time isn't optimal, but considering the current roster, he should be out there pretty much every day this year if only to confirm what we have or don't have in him before his Boras-driven salary becomes prohibitive.

Jim Thome was 23 in 1994. At the end of the season he had 796 PA. That season he hit .167/.247/.298 in 94 PA against LHP. I suppose he should have been put into a platoon for the rest of his career, too?

Good thing Hahn is a SABR guy, a Beane pupil.....So eventually this team will be figure out using logic I agree with

You are advocating that we give the majority of the starts in LF to Dewayne Wise. The guy with a career OBP of .264. This is a guy with a .269 OBP against righties with around 1000 ABs against them. You are basing this entirely on a hot streak that carried his OBP to above .300 in one split for probably the first time in his entire career. You think this is a thing a "SABR guy" would do?

Jim Thome was 23 in 1994. At the end of the season he had 796 PA. That season he hit .167/.247/.298 in 94 PA against LHP. I suppose he should have been put into a platoon for the rest of his career, too?

He hit .275/.380/.422 against them in '95.

Let's not start this argument again. There's no telling what Viciedo will do this year. As a realist, I'm expecting a slight improvement.

My only real concern is if Hahn is penciling such a flawed and increasingly expensive hitter into the 1B/cleanup spot after Paulie leaves, as that would be a huge step down.

Much more concerned about going into the season with 2 rookie catchers than anything Viciedo does at this stage of his career.